Former Edmonton goalie, 5-time Cup winner says team will be more disciplined
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Edmonton Oilers legend Grant Fuhr had his putter in hand on the fifth green of Desert Willow Golf Resort late Thursday morning when he took the call.
“It’s going forward. We’re not under par, how’s that?” the five-time Stanley Cup champion joked from Palm Desert, California.
Sub-par, Fuhr suggested, might sum up the Oilers’ third period against Dallas on Wednesday, the Stars scoring five unanswered goals in the game’s final 20 minutes for a stunning 6-3 win in Game 1 of their Western Conference Final.
“Oh, I watched it,” Fuhr said with a sigh. “I was feeling good after two periods, the Oilers were playing good hockey at that point. Then they got a little undisciplined and they were in trouble.”
© Andre Ringuette/NHLI
Grant Fuhr has fun with a group of young players during the Edmonton Oilers’ youth hockey program event at Rogers Place before the 2023 Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic on Oct. 28, 2023.
The Stars scored three power-play goals in a span of 5:26, clawing back from a 3-1 deficit to go ahead 4-3 by 5:58 of the third. They added an even-strength goal at 16:02 and finished off with one more into an empty Edmonton net 43 seconds later, Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner pulled for a sixth skater.
Game 2 in the series is Friday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN+, ESPN, SN, TVAS, CBC).
“(Skinner) didn’t play badly (Wednesday) night. Sometimes it’s just the way the game goes,” Fuhr said. “But he’ll get the blame for it. I looked at social media this morning and they’re all talking about bad goaltending, that Skinner gave up [four] in the third period. They obviously didn’t watch the end of the game.”
You’ll find little fault in Skinner for the result, given the Stars’ power-play tsunami. But it was a rude awakening after his two consecutive shutouts against Vegas eliminated the Golden Knights in a five-game first round.
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Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner blocks a shot against Dallas Stars defenseman Lian Bichsel during Game 1 of the Western Conference Final.
“Obviously we let down our guard for five or six minutes and got into some penalty trouble,” Skinner said postgame. “They were coming out hot, momentum kind of shifted for them in that moment, and obviously it bit us. It’s up to us to learn from, myself included obviously, and we have to get better from it.”
Fuhr won the Stanley Cup with Edmonton in 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1990, Bill Ranford going the entire way in 1990 when a shoulder injury kept Fuhr out of the postseason.
His championship total among goalies is one fewer than the top-ranked six won by Ken Dryden, Jacques Plante and Charlie Hodge of the Canadiens, tied with the five of the Maple Leafs’ Turk Broda.
In four Cup-bound seasons of action between 1984-88, Fuhr won 56 and lost 14 with a save percentage of .899, goals-against average of 2.87 and one shutout. Even in this analytics-rich age, only one playoff statistic matters to the 62-year-old native of Spruce Grove, Alberta: wins versus losses.
© Paul Bereswill/Hockey Hall of Fame
Grant Fuhr makes a glove save during Game 3 of the 1985 Campbell Conference Final against the Blackhawks at Chicago Stadium.
“For a goalie, playoff hockey is simple,” Fuhr said five games into last year’s Oilers-Florida Panthers Cup Final. “It’s not about save percentage or goals-against average. It’s about making the right save at the right time to change the momentum of a game or win a game. That’s the fun part of being a goalie in the playoffs — you make a difference every game, whether it’s good or bad. You’ll get the credit or the blame.”
On Thursday, he said that those thoughts are pretty much evergreen in unforgiving postseason hockey.
“That’s the beauty of the playoffs. That doesn’t change,” Fuhr said. “In the playoffs, it’s just whether you win or not. So you find a way to win. It doesn’t matter when you make the save, there’s always a save you can make to change the game.
“The fun part about it is that you can literally look at every playoff game you play and see a save here, a save there that could have changed momentum or the way the game went.”
© Paul Bereswill/Hockey Hall of Fame
Grant Fuhr makes a stick save during Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final on May 26, 1988, at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.
Until Thursday, Fuhr didn’t realize his connection to Commander Chris Hadfield, the retired Canadian astronaut.
The Oilers were leading Dallas 3-1 after 40 minutes when he saw the text message asking to connect Thursday for a talk about the unique world of playoff goaltending.
He replied 90 minutes later, his former team by then having gone down to a dramatic defeat.
“Sure, we’ll talk in the morning,” Fuhr replied.
This might have rivaled the May 13, 2013, return to Earth from the International Space Station of Hadfield, a hugely loyal forever Toronto Maple Leafs fan.
© Dave Stubbs/NHL.com
Wearing his Hockey Hall of Fame ring, Grant Fuhr signs a poster beneath an image of his mask during the 2020 Kinsmen Sports Celebrity Dinner in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Hadfield undocked from the orbiting laboratory one minute into Game 7 of Toronto’s First Round series against the Bruins in Boston. His Maple Leafs would go up 4-1 during his return to Earth but ultimately lose 5-4 in overtime, Hadfield touching down in the steppes of Kazakhstan 26 minutes after Patrice Bergeron’s series-clinching goal.
“The Leafs went down in flames that night,” Hadfield joked in a 2018 chat, suggesting that because the Maple Leafs had collapsed while he was out of radio contact during atmospheric re-entry, maybe the loss never happened.
No such luck for Fuhr, who was at home in Palm Desert, California, watching his former team skated out of American Airlines Center.
He was on the first tee at 9 a.m. P.T. on Thursday, with more time for golf these days; the American Hockey League’s Coachella Valley Firebirds, for whom Fuhr is a broadcast analyst, were knocked out of the Calder Cup playoffs on May 9 with a second-round loss to the Abbotsford Canucks.
© Steve Hiscock for Kinsmen Club of Saskatoon
Grant Fuhr during the 2020 Kinsmen Sports Celebrity Dinner in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Fuhr hopes for a better outcome for the Oilers on Friday in Game 2, and he expects “to sneak up for at least one game” to see Edmonton against the Stars or, perhaps, in the Stanley Cup Final.
Social media’s barbs notwithstanding, he has no concerns about Skinner’s ability to push Game 1 out of his memory and for the Oilers to bring a more disciplined effort.
“He’s shown a lot of resilience this season,” Fuhr said of Skinner. “I fully expect he’s going to be resilient again. And I think you’ll see a better Edmonton team, too.”
Top photo: Grant Fuhr with the Stanley Cup in the Edmonton Oilers’ Northlands Coliseum dressing room after the team’s 1985 championship win.
